I sowed some pepper seeds a few weeks ago for an early start along with a few other bits and pieces. I popped them under my Spiderfarmer sf2000 (at around 60% power and maybe 12” or so above the plants) about 2 weeks ago today and have noticed that a few of the pepper seedlings have some purple-ish colouration – is this caused by the light or something else?
The big pepper plant is worst affected and is a little experiment in trying – sowed the seed in august to see what happens
by SpeedingTable56
4 Comments
Some peppers have these black leaves I find. Looking good.
It’s totally normal. The first true leaves of some of your sprouts looks like they’re cupping… that could be due to the light intensity being by too much, or it’s just how they look as newly born leaves lol. I would monitor that and if they’re still cupped as they get bigger, they likely want slightly less intense light – like 55% vs 60% level of “slightly”.
I have Barrina shop lights, so I can’t adjust my light intensity with a dial… But when I saw this, it was easy to resolve by moving the light higher (further away). Luckily, my plants seem to like it. Just make sure your leaves aren’t cupping AND your seedlings aren’t getting leggy, and you should be good. 🙂
The LEDs are causing the purpling, but it isn’t indicative of any injury imo. I think everything is fine. LEDs do weird stuff, I can see it in your other plants as well. I had similar issues with LEDs in the past. I got some weirdly spaced growth that was slow. I swapped to fluorescents and the nodes/appearance improved.
Hmm I disagree with most commenters, I grow a lot of peppers & often purple on the leaves indicates a nutrition issue. I would hit those with a gentle fertilizer. Dilute worm castings would be the gold standard, but your local garden center can also give recommendations.